'Death records were wrong'
Robert Moore • Published 24 Jan 2012 10:00
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THE death certificates for 10 victims of a deadly superbug outbreak were missing vital information, an Inquiry has heard.
Last week Professor George Griffin, a specialist in Infectious Diseases Medicine at St George's University of London, gave evidence at the seventh session of the Public Inquiry into the Clostridium difficile (C-diff) outbreak at the Vale of Leven Hospital.
The Inquiry, which is being chaired by Lord McLean, is currently investigating the treatment of 60 people and the deaths of 39 patients at the medical facility between December 2007 and June 2008.
Professor Griffin was asked to look at the medical notes of 43 patients to see whether or not, in his opinion, C-diff was a factor in their deaths.
In addition he studied the notes of 31 patients who died in the hospital between December 2007 and June 2008 and found that in 28 of the cases - or 90 per cent - they had died as a result of the killer bug.
Professor Griffin stated that out of the 43 cases he studied in total he thought C-diff contributed to the deaths of 33 of them - or 77 per cent - and that the superbug should have been recorded on the death certificate of 10 patients where it did not appear.
He said: "I was given a very defined brief, and that is to look at these notes in detail and then to define C-diff infection as part of cause of death or contributing to death, and in each of those groups, there were four categories: definitely, probably, possibly and no.
"They [the ten patients who did not have had C-diff on their death certificate] were in the group "contributory to death" not in the 'definitely'."
Professor Griffin also studied the case of Ellen Pirog who died in the Vale Hospital on October 3, 2007.
Last year her daughter Anna Squires told the Inquiry that she was concerned that C-diff had played a role her mum's death - although it was not on her death certificate.
This article appeared in Dumbarton & Vale of Leven Reporter 24 Jan 12
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